Holiday Dessert Party 2012

We recently hosted our third annual holiday dessert party and it is one of my favorite parties that we host all year.  We invite all our friends and family and they are asked to bring a dessert to share and be voted on.  After everyone votes, one guest leaves home as the reigning dessert champion of the year and gets a festive little prize.

As the years go by and our friends and family get more accustomed to our party, the competition grows and the desserts keep on getting better.  I believe when you mix a ton of people who don't necessarily know each other, it is great to offer an activity.  A little friendly competition added to the mix and there is plenty to chat over and munch on all night.  I also like that I don't have to make a dessert and instead provide hot finger foods to help curb the sugar coma. 

Over the last few weeks I have been on the hunt for just the right chaffing dishes.  It is a whole new world of entertaining that I have not experienced yet so I am researching for what I want to invest in.  For how much we entertain it would be nice to have them to keep food hot and add a little more class to our serving table.  I couldn't come to a decision in time for our party so for a temporary fix, I was able to find four silver serving dishes at the Goodwill for $45 for all four.
  

They are pretty lovely aren't they?  Sitting there pretty with my shiny Christmas trees.  We did have a minor mishap with trying to light a flame underneath them though.  Not recommended (just wanted to make sure that was clear if any of you noticed in the photos it appeared we tried that)!

Our dining table gets set up as the dessert table.  I put out a bucket, pens, and paper for everyone to vote for their favorite dessert of the night.

I also hit a few thrift stores for more small appetizer sized plates.  We had an amazing turnout of about fifty guests so I was a little unprepared with the amount of small plates we had.

As guests arrived, everyone hovered around the food as expected.  There was so much dessert that we had to leave out forks and knives to cut them into small pieces.  Trying over twenty desserts in one setting can be a little overwhelming!

My adorable friend Julia jokes she always comes "photo ready" whenever she comes to my house!  She knows the drill of being friends with a blogger and photographer!

I don't think we have ever had this many people inside our house at once.  When it came to the final count of the vote and everyone hovered around the desserts, it was a little crazy!  But crazy in a...I feel so blessed we have so many awesome friends, family, and neighbors to celebrate this beautiful season with.  Warms my heart.

Love that my gym friends have become such amazing everyday friends...

Brent's friends from growing up and their amazing and beautiful wives...

And these two adorable college boys...I've known them since they were in eighth grade and made them pose in front the Christmas tree because they matched...if you have a nice sweet daughter in her early twenties, I can hook them up with one of these...

And my sweetheart who has learned to dress himself for these parties (he's come a long way!), mows the lawn before company comes, and doesn't even blink at the grocery bill when it comes to having people in our home...

And in case you noticed I did wear the same dress I wore to our party last year.  It's vintage and I cut the sleeves off.  It's my favorite party dress ever.  

You can also read about our holiday dessert party from last year and the year before!